"Smorgasbord" Religion, Being of a Faith, and the Personal Journey

[nativeastral]

Ooh another new word. Excellent

Are holders of this world view called "scientists"?

s.

no they're the philosophers who cannot function or string two words together without reference to the g#d of science

 

[Snoopy]

no they're the philosophers who cannot function or string two words together without reference to the g#d of science

mee-iaow!

s.

 

[earl]

Netscape Search For those wanting a definition of scientism. As one can see from that defintion, such is indeed a belief system and, like any belief system depending upon its adherent, can be held as fundamentalisticly as any religion. earl

 

[Tao_Equus]

In scientific investigations, it is permitted to invent any hypothesis and, if it explains various large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the rank of a well-grounded theory. (Charles Darwin)

In the light of the foregoing analysis, we can say that to determine what kinds of behavior are morally appropriate, we must know what we ourselves are and other beings are. In other words, ontology precedes ethics .. Deep ecologists claim that before knowing what we ought to do, we must understand who we really are. (Michael Zimmerman)

 

[path_of_one]

Part 1

Hello again PoO, Of course we must remember that the words are only labels or symbols to communicate as concisely and accurately as we are able. I use atheism because it is accurate enough to convey what I feel I am. I do not believe that the gods, deities or the expression of supernatural cause and effect is anything more than a creation of the human imagination. And I do that based on what I have observed. But I did not set out to reach that conclusion, rather that conclusion made itself so powerful in its evidence that I had no choice but accept it.

Whatever label you choose is fine by me. What I'm pointing out is that a label is only useful within a context. You find the label useful within your context, which is exactly what religious adherents also do and why they choose a label as well. The diversity you find in atheism is the same as the diversity you find in any religion, yet there is an emergent phenomenon of belonging and solidarity in each group, as well as the very human tendency to exclude others and see one's own group as the best or most accurate one.

From the point of view of someone like me who has never really understood group belonging or labels, but tried desperately to do so, who fights with the human tendency to wish to belong but has never felt they have belonged anywhere... it is a very conscious thing to look at human behavior and see this system of solidarity and exclusivity, of surity that one's own system and worldview is the best. It is so, so human.

And it is also very destructive in the modern global society, in my opinion. Very useful in the old days when you didn't know many outside your group- it gave you the warm-fuzzies toward your own "people" and some solidity in how you thought the world worked. But it doesn't do so well in a constantly changing world where others challenge your worldview. And we all have one.

You can say all day long that you somehow avoid having a worldview, but as Snoopy says, it is as extraordinary a claim as saying you have found God, and by your own system, would require extraordinary evidence.

And if, in fact, you had somehow managed to transcend this human condition, your own "group" of atheists has clearly not... as evidenced by atheists themselves, who still feel the need to convince others of their rightness and superiority of worldview, which is why they publish books on the subject.

My point is that none of this stuff is different from any other aspect of human life, and the atheists behave exactly as the religious adherents do- some with tolerance and others with intolerance, some with more understanding of their own point of view and others just using the label willy-nilly, and many atheists are as dedicated to their own secular worldview (be it materialism, humanism, or whatever) as the religious are to their worldviews. We have human brains and the same emergent properties no matter how we "free" ourselves from belief in the supernatural, and I fail to see why atheists are so defensive against this observation. The defensiveness indicates having a worldview that, just like religious ones, is unsettling when disrupted and so defends itself against the "attack" of other points of view. And as such, it harbors the same intolerance and superiority that religions portray, and has the same underlying potential to harm.

I guess what I'm saying is, I would be more likely to belief your lack of any belief system if you felt no need to defend yourself. In delving into physics and so forth, I find that if there's one thing I know, it's that I don't know &*%$. LOL And so what is there to defend? I can talk about why my worldview is what it is, but I have no need to defend it, as my own experience precludes getting out of my bubble just as much as yours does your own bubble and in that, I see equality of all worldviews. Now, I can look at usefulness but atheists do not usually wish to do this, at least with any honesty, and they rail against any evidence that religion has usefulness. Atheists prefer to make their arguments in the realm of accuracy, just as religious adherents do, because at the end of the day- that realm is safe. Why? Because we cannot know, and all our conjectures are best guesses.

This is why it is fun to talk about the existence of angels and demons, and not so fun to talk about what beliefs have contributed to sustainability. The former is something all can engage in with equal conviction they are right, that is unchallenging to our worldview and thus is "safe." The latter forces us to see the flaws in various worldviews and the benefits of some that are grossly inaccurate, while accurate worldviews may be grossly unhelpful... in this paradox is a great deal of angst for everyone involved.

This is partially why you and I come to different conclusions and why you insist I misunderstand you, but I don't think I do (more than any person misunderstands another, which is to say that I understand you about as well as you understand me). You wish to talk of accuracy, and I am interested in utility. You make sweeping generalizations about utility, refuse to look at evidence (which I have presented before), and exhibit a zest for your own beliefs about religion that are contrary to the idea that someone has no belief system.

The people closest to having extricated themselves from the worldview tendency that I have seen have been Buddhist enlightened ones, but then, they also seem to lose their desire at that point to make any point at all.

Atheists on the whole don't form gangs of 'like minds' to proseltyse their thinking. A handful do make a decent living off it and some use it negatively too. As a support for racist eugenic thinking for example. But most atheists wish religion would just go away quietly without them noticing.

I could say the same for the worlds' mystics.

The religion is to my mind irrelevant. No matter the religion when it gets down to the individual it is precisely that, individual.

So are you for ignoring emergent properties? This is like saying ecosystems get down to individual organisms. Well, yes, they do. But there are interesting emergent phenomena that result from the interactions. I fail to see how ignoring these is helpful?

Each and every person that believes in supernatural causes and effects and that they are the result of some being or pseudo-human sense of justice and good has simply not looked honestly at all the available critical evidence to the contrary. And it is vast.

This is evidence of your belief system. Have you polled "each and every person" and can you say that you understand exactly what goes on inside them? Can you see how that is an extraordinary claim and illogical? How it is self-deceptive and dishonest? You make sweeping claims like this that are just like what religious people say, with different group affiliation. I have heard the same exact thing from fundamentalist Christians, for example:

"Each and every person that does not believe in God and His effects, and does not see things here are a result of blah blah blah, has simply not looked honestly at all the available critical evidence to the contrary. And it is vast."

The literature is vast on all sides. I find nearly all of it irrelevant, except as data on that group. You seem to ask what is true. I ask what is useful and under what contexts. You treat the literature as evidence of the accuracy of a belief system. I treat the literature as evidence of a particular human social group. Which approach is less founded on belief and worldview?

And as an anthropologist I find it difficult to fathom that you have not seen a fairly potent body of it.

As an anthropologist, I am not looking for the data to support a particular worldview about the supernatural. I'm looking at the data as evidence about a social group, and use the data to form theories about the human condition in a holistic manner. There are two of me, in this regard. The anthropologist "me" is not engaging in seeking out evidence of my own belief system or another's (atheism or animism or whatever), but rather is using data to form theories about how humans perceive information, how they organize into groups, what their sense of identity is derived from, how they deal with outlier individuals, how they make decisions, how a particular worldview is adaptive or maladaptive in certain contexts, etc.

I think you and I see different purposes behind anthropological inquiry. I got into anthropology to understand and solve social problems, not to shore up a particular worldview about religion. My views on religion and the supernatural are based on my spiritual life, and while I may interpret some anthropological evidence in my personal life to mean something, I wouldn't dream of making anthropology into that endeavor. I fail to see how that would be useful to society.

Yet as long as you cling tightly to that you see as precious and good you wont see it. You are incapable of being neutral when you have belief.

That's what I said. Except that I do not cling to the belief that I am neutral, while you do. My "meta-belief" as Snoopy calls it, backed by anthropological evidence, is that humans have beliefs. All the evidence points to this, and after years of cognitive studies, I think people who claim to have no beliefs seem to be unclear as to how "belief" is defined more than their self-assessment is accurate. Moreover, I think that having no belief or worldview whatsoever would be unhelpful. Beliefs about how things work is part of the human evolutionary drive (as you yourself state), but while you seem to think that society could function without them, I do not. Humans operate in a world of beliefs, because we do not have strong enough instincts to do otherwise. Or you might say, our instinct is to form collective beliefs. I think you think belief is about religion or the supernatural, but it is not. It is about everything in life and forms our expectations of others' actions and our own norms for behavior. Frake demonstrated, for example, that people used the same categorization structures in the supernatural world that they did in the natural one- gods are classified just as plants are. Likewise, beliefs about how the supernatural work are formed just as we form beliefs about how other humans, plants, and the weather work- if we do X, what will Y entity do?

The materialist paradigm is no different- in its assumptions that things work a certain way, that certain types of data are most accurate, and so forth- and its tendency to sweepingly apply these forms of cognitive structures and assumptions to all of life- supernatural and natural alike. At the structural and functional level- it is no different from any other worldview. In content, it is, but then so is every worldview.

What I offer is the view that no one is neutral- myself included. It is a stance of equality and, from my evidence, honesty. So if no one is neutral and we can't get at what is "real," then the question becomes what is useful to an individual or a group.

 

[path_of_one]

No, not for everybody, but as a mass effect it is divisive, prejudiced and counter to being able to meet the needs of the global village we have evolved.

So is all other aspects of culture that promote exclusivity, the "us" vs. "them" mentality. Which includes atheism. And nationalism. In fact, -isms in general. While you hone in on religion, which fits perfectly with your worldview, I am saying that any worldview has this effect. What I propose as a solution is to get rid of the belief that our own worldview is more valuable than others'- and to do this, to end a focus on accuracy and begin a focus on contextual use. But for some reason, for all you seem to abhor division, you support with your own arguments and point of view and rail against my pragmatic approach. Deeply looking at atheism will demonstrate that it is no more or less able to meet our needs as a global village than anything else, and it is, in fact, frequently more divisive than certain religious sects have been and exhibits the same range in its adherents as any other worldview.

We all have several lenses we use to make sense of things but the religious one will always be that bit different for it is a deliberate distortion of reality. It creates a fuzzy image that, like seeing faces in a cloud or a pattern in the tea leaves in a cup, are actually meaningless.

First, you assume that religion is deliberate in its distortion. Second, you assume that we can know reality without distortion. Third, you presume distortion is a bad thing and cannot be useful. Fourth, you presume that symbols are meaningless, when in fact human life is completely and inevitably mediated through symbols, the most obvious of which is language itself.

I would say that religion is only sometimes deliberate in its distortion, as is political systems, philsophies, and every other human social institution. Second, I would say we cannot know reality without some distortion. Even if by some miracle we ended our cultural conditioning, our distortion that comes from the limitations of how the human brain itself organizes information would remain. Third, I can show evidence that distortion can produce useful systems. Fourth, I would argue that symbols certainly have meaning for human evolution and the cohesion of large social groups (as well as the communication between people in social groups), which what allowed us to move beyond the social groupings of other social mammals and into the unique position we are now in. You of all people, with a focus on human evolution, should realize that symbolic thought is integral to the evolution of the human species and is therefore full of meaning. Not liking or agreeing with specific symbols or symbolic systems is not the same and being able to say symbolic thought is itself pointless or devoid of meaning.

Wishful thinking imposed on randomness. There are now mountains of observational tests that all show there is no supernatural causation to any of the claims of those that profess them.

I would say all that is irrelevant to the real issue. Religion is not about the supernatural. That is only its occasional outward clothing (not all religious systems are even outwardly about the supernatural). Religion may be about the supermundane, but that falls apart when you look at the lives of Buddhist monks or Christian mystics. So what is religion really about? That's the interesting question to me. Again, I want to know about usefulness. We expend too much as a species in spiritual thought and action for it to be useless; evolution would have weeded it out long ago.

Interestingly, when we look at religious systems, we find that those in whose lives it plays a minor role are typically the most superficial in their beliefs and how it impacts their daily lives- in the modern Western world, for example, many believers simply have beliefs about the supernatural. With more depth and time involved, we find that the spiritual becomes wrapped up in daily life and begins to entwine the supermundane with the mundane. In some individuals, particularly those whose lives are completely given to spirituality, such as monks or nuns of various religions, there is no distinction between supernatural and natural, mundane and extraordinary, sacred and profane. All life becomes sacred and spiritual, and the spiritual world becomes regular life.

A long look at all belief throws up many traces time and time again. So much so that I can only conclude it a creation of the imagination.

To me, the evidence precludes me from making a distinction between creations of our imagination and reality. The evidence from many fields indicates either a co-creative aspect of our reality, or if this is absent, an inability on the part of the human brain to see clearly reality at all.

Survival within and with the group.

Exactly. I'm interested in how. That so far, the evidence is that humans have proliferated and survived in part because of our symbolic systems and worldviews, I am hesitant to dismiss them. I respect what brought us this far. Furthermore, we can see that the less religious Western world does not necessarily help anything. We are less sustainable than most more religious societies were, our civilizations are unlikely to last as long, and we are also unhappier. Depression rages in the States, where few people have an active spiritual life, no matter what they self-identify as. Materialism brings little impetus for group-centered, long-term decision making. There are some fundamental issues in ROI and cost-benefit analysis that screw up optimal decision-making for the species as a whole, or a society in particular. I can elaborate if needed, or can provide some references, which would be better.

Evolution clearly defines how we evolved. Animistic societies are sometimes looked at through a rose-tinted, yearning nostalgia. Where tribes of isolated peoples still practice animism, and we observe, we see very many ridiculous ideas, and a few genuinely founded ones that are real aid to social cohesion and survival. The well founded and the unfounded are all twisted together. Inseparable. And modern belief systems are still just as confused.

But you assume that this confusion does not exist for an evolutionary good reason. That's a big assumption. And you assume that though they are inseparable, you have somehow separated them into the "very many ridiculous ideas" and the "genuinely founded ones." You are either the world's greatest social theorist and need to write it down and offer it to the criticism of social science, or you are deluding yourself about your unique abilities to do what you yourself say is impossible to do. Sorry.

And I do not look at animism with yearning nostalgia for its own sake. I am simply honest in saying that small-scale, animistic societies lasted for thousands of years sustainably. We, with our Western science, are not faring nearly as well. Yet somehow, with our mere hundreds of years behind us, are so puffed up in our arrogance that we feel we can pass judgments on those who made it far longer, who were more sustainable...

To me, this arrogance is at the heart of part of our problems and has been an issue since agriculturists settled down, created large-scale institutions, and then saw it fit to dominate the previously far more egalitarian and sustainable societies. No society is perfect, but some have lasted longer with far less inequality and damage to the earth. We could stand to learn something from these "others," no matter how superstitious and primitive we assume their religions to be.

Atheists of my variety love, are charitable, compassionate and far more liberal (not in the American pejorative tense), than someone who has given belief little or no thought.

LOL- but every group could say this. I could say "the Christ followers of my variety love, are charitable, compassionate and far more liberal than someone who has given belief little or no thought." You could replace the group with any label. It is not the label that matters. What matters is the individual thinking about their beliefs.

They both carry a lens through which to perceive a crafted vision. Not a real one. That lens can be removed, and I have.

I think that is as delusional a belief as any other. I have seen no evidence of this, and it is as impossible to prove as any other belief. But I love ya anyway...

What unbending faith in science do I have? I judge each bit of scientific evidence on its own merit. I do not have a wholesale faith in any science to ultimately define anything and sincerely hope I never will have.

You seem to have a wholesale faith in science as being the best possible mode of inquiry, no matter what the context. That is faith in science. A very religious person may have wholesale faith in their religion itself as being the best possible mode of inquiry, no matter what the context. That is faith in their religion. I am failing to see the difference in this, in terms of practical cognitive structure and function. Many Christians, for example, do not have wholesale faith in all their doctrine- hence, different denominations arise. Likewise, different theoretical "camps" arise in science. And the same investment of personal ego occurs, the same defensiveness, etc. Structurally and functionally within these groups, these things are extremely similar. Many of your statements I can remove "science" or "atheism" and replace it with "Christianity" or somesuch, and it makes perfect sense. That alone indicates that these are in some way under the same umbrella of cognitive structure and function.

And when you do look for evidence you see nothing but delusion, self-delusion and too often fraud.

This happens in science too. A quick review of the human evolutionary literature reveals this, for example. Science, just like religion, posits some who are the keepers of knowledge and the ones who define the inquiry and validity of evidence. Most of science dismisses the ordinary person and their data. Science and religion are extremely similar, and it makes perfect sense they would be, given the underlying common reliance on human brain limitations and cognitive structures. Rather than give a long discussion, I would recommend beginning with "Ecologies of the Heart" and "Loving Nature" and going from there, expanding into the literature, as well as reading post-modern critiques. An unwillingness for one to be self-critical of science indicates the same stuff you say plagues religion above.

Their results are unambiguous in that not one has produced a result that does not fit into the idea that there is no god/supernatural phenomena to be observed.

I think whether or not god/the supernatural actually exists is a far less important question as when and how it is useful and beneficial, to the individual and to the group. Anthropology mostly focuses on this question of contextual usefulness and how things work within social context.

Its for all the world like you cannot accept I have no belief. Of course I have my views formed only by what little I learn. I cannot have a view on something I have no information about. But I have plenty of information about belief and have tested it in a life long rolling project.

But couldn't I say the same thing? You wouldn't believe me, would you?

Instead, I offer the midway point- we both have beliefs, based on the little I learn. Neither of us could have views on something we have no information about, but we each have plenty of information about belief and have tested it in a life-long rolling project.

You seem unhappy with accepting that you might have beliefs and be a normal human being. That you may be as limited as anyone else, and this is where I challenge you. I don't challenge that in your experience and observation, atheism makes the most sense. What I challenge is your assumption that your experience and conclusion is any more valid than others. The two are very different assertions. If you were to say, in my experience, atheism makes a lot of sense, I would say- doesn't in mine, but glad you found a system that makes sense for you! But to say, my experience means I have found the correct answer about reality for all humans everywhere, I say- well, that is a bit of an extraordinary claim, isn't it? How is it different from the most fervent of prophets?

It does not make me 'special', I still love, cherish and value all my relationships with people. I hurt and bleed and yearn and need just like everybody else. You do not need belief to be human.

I would argue that the evidence says that you do, as Snoopy argues. Beliefs don't have to be about the supernatural to be about beliefs. Our whole social world is founded on beliefs. And of course, being an atheist doesn't make someone any less human or normal than anyone else. That's part of my argument.

And I, too, am glad this "crusty old Scot" is back. I enjoy our conversations...

 

[Snoopy]

I went yesterday to the Lake Shrine Temple, and interfaith temple in LA that has gardens dedicated to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as well as some of Ghandi's ashes enshrined. It was beautiful and peaceful.

I looked at the website; it seems beautiful and peaceful. Let's have one in every neighbourhood

s.

 

[Snoopy]

as Snoopy says,

as Snoopy calls it,

...............................................

 

[Snoopy]

as Snoopy argues.

Oh, I just can't cope with all these references, PoO!

...especially when it's not me that said this stuff

s.

 

[Saltmeister]

The cocktail of cause, manifestation and meaning when that individual practices their belief always means that not two people share exactly the same belief for exactly the same reasons.

Each individual has a different relationship with the phenomenon with which they seek a connection. That's why their beliefs are different. I don't see a problem.

You are incapable of being neutral when you have belief.

Everybody has beliefs, so nobody is neutral.

In fact my belief is religious belief does far more harm than good.

That is a belief.

No, not for everybody, but as a mass effect it is divisive, prejudiced and counter to being able to meet the needs of the global village we have evolved.

Religion isn't divisive or prejudiced in nature. Religious activity is only divisive and prejudiced when the people who serve as stewards and leaders think they have to run their religious communities in a divisive and prejudiced manner, based on what they think is loyalty to their religion. It's a cultural struggle. Adherents of a religion have to learn how to be less divisive and prejudiced. It's a bit like the cultural struggle with racism and feminism. Religion, pursued the wrong way, can become a kind of spiritual racism.

So much so that I can only conclude it a creation of the imagination.

They both carry a lens through which to perceive a crafted vision. Not a real one. That lens can be removed, and I have.

Belief is the constant application of a mental illusion to the human interface with reality. That blurred lens again.

Even if it is true that what people believe in doesn't exist at all, why is it then pointless to continue believing? You're assuming that the existence of a believed-in entity is more important than the ethics of believing in it.

You want something that isn't just a creation of one's imagination, but something that has evidence for its own existence, something objectively real. You're not interested in the ethics of believing in it. You want the real thing.

The lens through which I see the reality of my own creative imagination, is one that I enjoy wearing. My beliefs have sentimental value. To me it doesn't matter whether or not it's objectively real. What matters is the ethics of believing in whatever it is that I believe. It is a matter of devotion. There is a sense of nobility and honour in choosing my lens, my beliefs and giving my devotion and loyalty to them. It's like being a samurai warrior.

It's just that some people are less civilised in their "cosmic struggle" than others.

But back to the lens metaphor -- if my glasses make me think I am seeing a beautiful woman, I might as well continue wearing them!

Science can be and is used to study the arts, humanities and social sciences. But I am not a scientist. That religion falls under the remit of humanities in our secular educational establishments actually confirms quite succinctly all I say.

Science defines objective reality but not subjective reality. Objective reality is unambiguous in what you can measure and observe.

Arts, humanities and social sciences are the exploration of subjective realities. Subjective reality is ambiguous in what you can measure and observe. With subjective reality, what you "see" is not necessarily what I "see."

Both objective and subjective reality involve measurement and observation. What separates the two is the consistency in interpretation. With objective reality, everybody can achieve the same interpretation. With subjective reality, there is no guarantee that everybody is going to have the same interpretation.

Arts, humanities and social sciences involve multiple interpretations for the same object, entity or concept being sampled. Social science, although it is called a "science" isn't really a science because it can yield multiple interpretations. Anything that yields multiple interpretations is not authentic "science" because it is subjective. Science has to be objective.

"Social science" therefore, isn't a science. It's just a fancy marketing term to give students studying social science more "credibility" and to make them seem more intellectual in the "scientific" sense. It's a pseudo-science. I guess creationism and "Intelligent Design" fall under the same category. Arts and humanities are even less "scientific" than social science.

I have put every religious/spiritual/supernatural claim through the sieve of many observations and found them all leading back to having their cause and manifestation solely in the human imagination.

Science is the best tool we have for deciding if something is real or not real.

Science is the best tool for deciding what is objectively real, not what is subjectively real.

I do not 'intuit' there is no god, spirit world, afterlife, angels etc...... I just see that there is not a shred of evidence for them.

Psychology, neurology, anthropology, indeed very many ologies can do and have studied belief. Their results are unambiguous in that not one has produced a result that does not fit into the idea that there is no god/supernatural phenomena to be observed.

Indeed there is no universally observable phenomenon of a god/God, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. That's why it's a matter of faith and one's imagination and experience.

This last paragraph makes me feel so misunderstood. Its for all the world like you cannot accept I have no belief.

One can accept that you have no "belief system," but to say you have no beliefs in my reality would be ridiculous because you are human.

Of course I have my views formed only by what little I learn.

A view, in practical terms, is a belief. Feelings, view, beliefs, attitudes, opinions. They are all different flavours of the same thing. It's part of what it means to be human in my view, which is . . . of course, a belief, attitude and view. But in my reality, everybody has beliefs just as they have feelings and attitudes.

You have beliefs about religion, for example, even though you have no religious belief. You got involved in thinking about religion, whether you think it's good or bad, useful or not useful, harmful or harmless, divisive and prejudiced, or not . . . these are beliefs.

The only way you would get rid of your beliefs about religion now is if you now convinced yourself that religion didn't exist. But then . . . you would believe that religion didn't exist.

But then what about you, yourself and inuk? Does inuk exist? There you are. Where there are humans, there are beliefs.

I am a human being. Humans are important to me. Humans 'do' religion but everybody has their own version. I wanted to know what religion is why people invest in it and so I looked. I cannot help what I find. Being an atheist like me is not supplanting one lens with another. It is, as I have said all along, about throwing that lens away altogether. It does not make me 'special', I still love, cherish and value all my relationships with people. I hurt and bleed and yearn and need just like everybody else.

You do not need belief to be human.

No, beliefs are not a necessarily condition to be human, but you have beliefs because you are human.

I am just a curious man trying to know what is or is not real. Materially real. All my life I have been surrounded by the literature, conversation and paraphernalia of belief.

Yes but no but yes but no but.... I use every method of thinking I find useful including subjectivity and objectivity. My learning is from the same sources available to anyone here. My experience of and indulgence in learning is not the same as anyone else and the same is true for every one of us.

Reality is a mixture of subjectivity and objectivity. Reality is defined by its meaning and obtained through interpretation.

I think it may benefit your curiosity if I say that most of my religious experience is not supernatural, but social, political, mental, emotional, intellectual and philosophical. I have very little experience, compared to you and PathOfOne, that I would regard as affiliated (real or not) or associated with the supernatural.

But our brains did not evolve to give life to the gods!!

That is not for you to decide, but the Blind Watchmaker.

But hey look around you. Religious belief has survived. It can be romantic to be religious (or atheist) . . . sexual evolution . . . survival of the sexiest.

 

[Saltmeister]

Oh, I just can't cope with all these references, PoO!

...especially when it's not me that said this stuff

s.

I think it was . . . actually . . . me.

 

[Saltmeister]

I guess what I'm saying is, I would be more likely to belief your lack of any belief system if you felt no need to defend yourself.
.............
This is evidence of your belief system. Have you polled "each and every person" and can you say that you understand exactly what goes on inside them? Can you see how that is an extraordinary claim and illogical? How it is self-deceptive and dishonest? You make sweeping claims like this that are just like what religious people say, with different group affiliation............

My dispute with inuk is mainly with his use of terminology.

There is a difference between claiming "no belief" and "no belief system." The latter is more reasonable while the former is almost impossible for humans. It's like emptying your mind.

It would involve some intense meditation. It may even require that one become a monk or a hermit to escape society. This, I believe, is the best way to achieve a mind with "no belief." To achieve a mind with "no belief" you'd be asking yourself to pursue a monastic life of abstinence from "belief." That is what achieving a mind of that level of belief-free purity and holiness would involve. It sounds like a kind of atheistic, belief-free asceticism.

It is just disturbing because it seems like a "holier than thou" claim.

Inuk does not seem at all to be some kind of belief-free "superman" and he even says so himself that he has given up trying to be "superman." To have a mind free of belief, you'd have to have above-average human super-powers to repel beliefs from your mind.

I have no dispute with him saying he has no belief system, but I do have a dispute with "no belief." Once we have established that what he really means is "no belief system," further discussion on the notion of "having no beliefs" is pointless except to remind and correct him on every important and significant occasion where he says or implies it.

It seems more like a bad habit on his part.

So what is the Tao trying to teach us? Does the Tao have a monastery?

 

[ciberpy]

"Smorgasbord" Religion, Being of a Faith, and the Personal Journey

Looks like the same thread that I derailed before, or was convicted thereof.

If the title instead were, "Smorgasbord" relationships, Faith in a Being, and a Communal Journey, then 'community' would come without consideration like the previous breath of air. A narrow path is not a path for one.

I finally saw the Blue Man Group last year in Orlando. They have a message about community as they roasted the modern internet traveller. The narrator notes: People go to an internet cafe not to interact with those present, but to converse with the people who are not. I find that behavior is present in many places, and I find nothing narrow about that path. A religious belief can be had without a relationship, and a religious belief will not lie, harm, control, manipulate, murder, take, seduce, commit adultery, etc. People, however, can.

I was interacting one day with a person who claimed that someone could justify anything or consider anything a crime. A form of, "Smorgasbord" religion. I had just pointed out to this person that his business plans would make him a hypocrite, and he was a little angry over that. My response was something like, "Do you like it that others do XYZZY to you and to others?" His answer was decisive… there was nothing wishy-washy or smorgasbord about his belief. The wishy-washy came in judging his own plan.

By the same method: Is there anyone here who does not appreciate it when others place faith in them? I doubt there will be a wishy-washy answer to my question, though this thread looks like a smorgasboard discussion of ‘faith’.

I have another question: How can a person have 'faith in God' if a person does not know or believe that God exists? My answer: It is possible. In the gospels there is an interesting example of placing 'faith in God'. There is a strange example because it involves killing a tree. How is killing a tree a matter of placing faith in God? Why not an example of planting a tree in a nicely fenced garden? Today there would be a question of civility, whether in court or with guns drawn there would be a question of whose tree it was and whose garden it was in. Is the owner the person who planted the tree, or is the owner the person who purchased the land where it was planted? Regardless of the fallout, I notice that it is not God that is seen directly. It is the words and it is the tree that are seen.

In a tavern a couple of weeks ago I heard it said from a bar owner that it was a matter of placing 'faith' in his bouncer to let the bouncer kick someone out of the bar, even as he disagreed with the decision of that bouncer. I found that interesting, and I hope his bouncer was God.

Yet they will continue to use such an illogical argument no matter how hard you attempt to point out its inconsistent logic. And that is what faith is. A suspension of reason, evidence and logic.

I should thank you for having that inconsistent logic in me, that suspension of reason, evidence, and logic, as you prefer to call it. I slept well and enjoyed the breakfast and conversation. I find that it is by similar suspensions of logic, as you prefer to call it, that I have seen a bit of interaction with some omni-present, interacting force. Things like: confession, being honest when it was to a disadvantage, hiring someone from the side of the road, travelling somewhere even when threatened, giving to someone, rebuking an undesired behavior. You surely have faith, Tao, and demonstrated it to me. That does not mean we believe or know the same, or have the same experiences. It means that you have the faith and placed the faith that is valuable to me. Thank you.

The thing is... I wish sometimes I could just be something. I like the idea of a community.

I see that many here like the idea of a non-community, because community involves an interaction and a joint ownership. Blue Man Group interaction. Am I wrong? I am purposely derailing your thread, and I am purposely not derailing our thread. Or is this the site owner’s thread and a moderator’s garden? Well now, just whose courtyard are we really in… in this life? If being something is important, then I would recommend being honest, with faith, and mercy. I discussed a method to take the wishy-washy out of those words. If you want community, I submit that: "Smorgasbord" relationships, Faith in Being, and a Communal Journey... is a good path.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Thank you PoO, its good to be talking again, though I never was 'away', I had continued reading.

You raise so many interesting points that its difficult to respond to all of them. And this focus on the terminology of belief should have been nailed long ago. I understand you think I have a 'belief' in the scientific method that is akin to the religious 'belief'. I disagree. I see the scientific method as a tool that can be applied to absolutely everything, as in the previous Darwin quote, but it can only deliver hypothesis not belief. The more bits of data that stack up to support a hypothesis the closer the body of it can be seen to resemble belief. In that sense I have many beliefs. My use of the English language may be sadly lacking, or perhaps we are just doing what we come here to do, beat some ideas up. I think the best I can say is that I have no belief lens of a religious or supernatural nature.

Also I am not here to proselytise a religion of one. I am here to beat up ideas with other like-minded people. Of all the people in this world that have religious belief there would be only a fraction of a percent I could find no common ground with. And these would constitute the lunatics any sane person would be hard pressed to give audience. I evidently, though not deliberately, seem to have a bit of a bible thumpers fervour in my writing style that seems to mask my true ambivalence. And if you look at some of my thoughts on cosmology and theoretical physics in the science sections I can be deemed as romantic as any spiritualist. Its about what floats your boat. What you see as important.

Where as you have many ways to relate your spiritual side to value that I can only applaud I am overwhelmed mostly by the cruelty and suffering I see being meted out by belief systems. And when I weigh it against the value you assign as making belief worthwhile to mankind, my scale of value falls the other way. I have actually had the phrase "throw the baby out with the bathwater" levelled at me on more than one occasion on just this point. But I say as far as I can guess things will not change, (ie: the billions of hideous events that result directly from religious thinking), without a rapid and wholesale dismissal of belief by humanity. That to me includes all the pink fluffy, romantic or sexy religion too, so yes I would advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Though you correctly say some other ideology would take up the slack that would become the next challenge. We have to evolve, or die out. As I see it we are now a single massive tribe, we require a shared language of co-operation that meets the challenges ahead. Religions are too imature and too Alpha aggressive to create anything but a totalitarian hell. I do not think for a moment humanity is capable of such a transformation. Indeed I am pretty certain that before I die many millions more will have died with God, Allah or Beallzebub written on the bullets. You seem to think we would find other excuses to kill each other if we had no religious beliefs. But I wonder if evrybody viewed the usefulness of belief as I do whether that rationality would not change us so radically we would tolerate no other excuse either. That is all I can do though, wonder.

As Bob Marley is often quoted "Have no fear of atomic energy, none of us can stop the times". We are a living organism, we change, adapt and evolve. To state that previous tribal or animistic societies always managed their resources better than we do is a misleading and innacurate. Many historical societies and empires have raped resources in an eventually suicidal manner. And other factors such as war and natural disaster need to be figured in. Progress is our natural evolution and that evolution has given us the abilty to now manipulate the processes itself. With the full use of extant technology we could exploit resources to feed, clothe and house over twice the current global population with current developed world luxury. Our inibility to do so is a deliberate handicap imposed by the Alpha male groups of leaders, political and religious, that are only in it for themselves. I think people need to embrace technology and our global citizenship and stand up to these gangs of hoodlums we call our leaders. One of the reasons we do not is the psychological use of religion to accept the unacceptable. I know that for you, Salty and countless others religion has value but, to my thinking, it is religion that is preventing the kind of progress we need, want and deserve.

But I have to go out now....so I'l have to leave it there for now....

 

[Abdullah]

I've been reflecting a lot on that question of "what am I?" religiously. Personally, I don't think it matters (in terms of salvation or what have you), but as an anthropologist that looks at issues of identity and community a lot, I can't help but engage in self-reflection.

I've been thinking about what I hear a lot from various people- first, this discussion of "Cafeteria" religion and the "wishy-washy" folks. I agree with many that religions and traditions should not be just appropriated by anyone without careful study, and should not be used to deceive others or missionize to others. But I suppose what I wonder about, is what to do with people like me who have long been on a personal spiritual journey, and later find that what they believe and experience resonates in some ways with this, other ways with that, religion.

I was raised a Christian, but an odd sort of Christian, with little or no emphasis on doctrine and the basis of faith in a personal relationship to the Divine (essentially, Christian mysticism). The other big parts of my conditioning were cultivating compassion and service for others, social justice, and experiencing God through nature- God as in and through the universe, the earth, and her creatures.

Over time, I tried in various ways to connect to a sense of religious community. As a kid, my friends were mostly Baptist. So I tried good 'ole conservative Baptist church for several years in elementary and junior high, and it didn't fit well with my own experience or beliefs at all. I tried the non-denom Christian mega-churches in junior high through part of college, which not only didn't fit with my experience or beliefs, it didn't fit with my personality or sensitivity to crowds and noise, either. I became interested in other cultures and religions early on, and starting around 9 or 10 began reading what I could about indigenous shamanic religions and Taoism- I think it always struck a chord but I didn't have the courage to explore until high school. Once I got into college, I minored in comparative religious studies and majored in anthropology- soaking up all I could.

What I found was interesting. The beliefs I'd developed on my own were quite Buddhist. Except that I had this personal mystical relationship with God (which I experience as both this infinitely incomprehensible Being) and Christ (which I experience as a personal comforter, teacher, and yes- deliverer). Most other stuff in Christianity made little sense to me, and most of my ideas about God, Satan, and whatnot seemed more Jewish than anything else. And I found modern Druidry, which is not a religion for me at all, but more a community to learn more about mysticism and shamanism as it relates to Earth-based spirituality. I'm intuitively shamanic- it seems to be part of my baseline personality type and is part of my life as far back as I can remember- so this nature-based mystical practice resonates too. But I can't get my head around polytheism.

So... I'm a smorgasbord, right? But an informed smorgasbord? I go to an Episcopal church, think Buddhist ideas, do Druidic ritual and meditation in grove of trees, and believe the grace of God manifested itself in the form of Christ (at least, it did to me). Sigh.

The thing is... I wish sometimes I could just be something. I like the idea of a community. It just doesn't seem to work very well. I can't rid myself of cognitive dissonance enough to be mainline Christian. I can't give up Christ enough to be Pagan or Jewish. And I can't give up the experience of God enough to be Buddhist. The thing is, I am profoundly committed to a sense of communal service and humanity becoming more spiritually aware. And I feel the type of support one would get from retreats, classes, etc. would be very helpful, but the non-religious Druidic ones are too far away (UK, anyone?) and Christian ones make me feel like an imposter, to be honest. Maybe the Buddhists would welcome me. Though they're far away too (but not half a world away!).

Long story longer, I'm interested to hear about how you think about your own religious identity. Do you feel like you found "home" and believe what others believe, do what they do, etc.? Or do you feel slightly out of place? What value you do see in being of a particular faith, and how does it relate to your spiritual journey personally? How does a sense of community relate to your vision of "the other shore" toward which you're floating/rowing/being pulled?

If you feel out of place in your religion, because you have beliefs or practices or experiences that don't quite mesh with "orthodox" or "mainstream" views- how do you view that? How do you handle it? Do you see that as imperfections in you- that is, you need to change to what the community norms dictate? Or do you see that as imperfections in the community? Or just differences arising from varied experience, conditioning, and so forth?

I often feel a bit like an imposter in Christianity. I sincerely love Christ and follow his teachings. I experience him personally. But beyond that, I have not much in common. So I sometimes feel like I'm something else in Christian clothing when I go to a Bible study or retreat. At church, it doesn't matter much as it is a liturgical church and the point is common prayer. But otherwise, the more personal groupings of Christians, I feel like I'm either rocking the boat or being reserved. Reserved is fine, but to most Christians reservedness is taken for passive agreement, and then I feel like I'm lying by default.

So... thoughts? What do you or would you do in a similar situation?

Peace be on you path_of_one,

that was a verry interesting read and thankyou for sharing your story with us,

Here is my two cents about what I feel and think about what has influenced your beliefs and choices and what I would do if I was in your situation...:

There is inside of us the self [base self] which is influenced by desires and what one feels to be spirituality can be deceptive, for example, I can imagine myself to be thinking on a 'spiritual level' and would probably feel a spiritually elevated feeling as my thoughts and feelings are communing with the spiritual world, and if there should be falsehood and errors; deceptive beliefs and thoughts associated with those thoughts and feelings, yet I can be decieved into interpreting this in a 'spiritual way' and feel I'm right in some way;

when we try to find the correct spiritual path using only our personal thoughts and reasoning, the desires prompt us towards a way where we indulge in it, thus contenting ourselves [or trying to content ourselves] and 'decieving' ourselves into thinking that were being as good as possible, but really what were doing is mixing some of the true spiritual path [whcih the common sense and intellect can comprehend without revelation] with deceptions which are based on our desires [lets us live our life accrding to the way we desire it and makes us 'feel' best];

so my dear brother, you have got some of the obvious correct in that the spiritual path should be service to mankind and connecting with God through nature [i.e, seeing Gods might, Mercy, existence through the nature that He has created and feeling at peace when we connect to that nature [as it is Gods natural creation and as we mankind have been created from natural elements too such as earth, water? etc,], and meditation, contemplation, and a degree of unworldliness [bhudist qualities?], thus you have identified different aspects of what your thuoghts and desires have led you too with the different religions they can be attributed to, and you have interpreted a lot of deceptions too in a spiritual way, such as 'just live and believe according to the way I desire best' and interpreting a feeling of what seems to be 'connecting to God' through a man, Jesus [pbuh], if you attribute any kind of divinity to him that is, and that would be associating partners to God and decieving yourself into thinking that that is not polythiesm.

Thus if I was you my friend, I'd first acknowledge that our personal thoughts and feelings, without divine guidance is fallible and thus can be deceptive [there's only a certain number of principles that we can be sure of as being right or wrong without divine guidance]; secondly, I'd consider that if the righteous way should be for us to just think and feel out the righteous way for us based soley on our personal reasonings and feelings, then mankind will reach many different conclusions as to the right way, thus allways disagreeing and being in conflict with one another?, which brings us to the question of, would an obviously Mercifull God allow such a thing?, thirdly, if it should be that mankind should devise their own way of life [without any divine guidance], then why should God reveal any guidance at all?

These thoughts would, God-willing, lead me to conclude that God has probably revealed a religion, explaining the way to Him [and how to live a comprehensively good life from the cradle to the grave] and thus this in turn would compel me to carry out comparative studies; when doing so, I'd be carefull not to judge based on my desires and wishes, and discern with my intellect and intuition and at the same time ask God to guide me to the truth; the religions I'd look into are Christianity [but I'd outrightly reject the polythiesm in it and consider wether the Muslims could be right that the Bible has been distorted], Judaism [I'd strictly consider wether an undistorted book from God could influence so many people to have as a religious policy to exterminate a civillian population and keep them under severe, cruel and callous opression for over 60? years] and i'd look into Islam; obviously I wouldn't look to the media to learn about it or otherwise I'd only hear about Osama and his crew, etc, but to the Quran and Sunnah and seriously consider wether such teachings could be from God; and take it from there...

Personally with me and my religious identity, it's more of what I recognise to be the truth from God rather than how my life is with all the duties and principles in it; if i live my life according to the religion I associate myself with; Islam, then I feel peace and content and the opposite makes me feel as though I'm taking my soul and life towards gradual destruction

hope that helps

Peace

 

[shawn]

IMO all religions have more to do with control of the masses than they do with liberation/enlightenment of the individual.
So one must be a cut a paste artist at the buffet of belief which we find ourselves in.
I don't believe in adoration or reverence of spiritual figures such as teachers and prophets and such as the best teacher is a finger pointing the way and becomes transparent so as to allow a better view of the Divine they are talking about.
We are nothing, pretending to be something.

 

[ciberpy]

We are nothing, pretending to be something.

Science is the measure of something. Something finite. Whereas nothing is infinite. Math reports that there is an infinite quantity of nothing, but science can't measure it. So it seems like science and religion both report that people are something.

IMO all religions have more to do with control of the masses than they do with liberation/enlightenment of the individual.

inuk is in good company with you on this sentiment. Does a religion refer to a textbook, or those who read the textbook or document, or to those who claim to follow a textbook or document? I have no fear of being manipulated by a textbook or document, but the people who claim to follow one can sometimes be a little scary.

Perhaps if religion were defined as: People who claim to follow a document and claim it as true or false, without actually repeating the experiment for themselves to really know whether or not it were true. With that definition, I'd have to agree with the sentiment against every religion... including science.

 

[Paladin]

IMO all religions have more to do with control of the masses than they do with liberation/enlightenment of the individual.
So one must be a cut a paste artist at the buffet of belief which we find ourselves in.
I don't believe in adoration or reverence of spiritual figures such as teachers and prophets and such as the best teacher is a finger pointing the way and becomes transparent so as to allow a better view of the Divine they are talking about.
We are nothing, pretending to be something.

Hi Shawn,
I don't disagree with the points you make but I see something else as well.
The irony of self transcendence or personal transformation is that from all accounts it is necessary to be something before you are nothing.
Consider those at a level of development that depends on an external locus of control for functioning within the community.
Also it is intriguing to me what happens when a child begins to grow up without going through a healthy separation stage.
I have watched people with Narcissistic personality disorder try to function in groups and the dynamic is painful to watch.
Conversely, those persons who have established a healthy sense of self seem to be in a better position to let go of the image of self thus seeing beyond the created and self sustained ego personality.

I also note that nearly every religion has those members who have experienced and written about this experience.

 

[Nick_A]

IMO all religions have more to do with control of the masses than they do with liberation/enlightenment of the individual.
So one must be a cut a paste artist at the buffet of belief which we find ourselves in.
I don't believe in adoration or reverence of spiritual figures such as teachers and prophets and such as the best teacher is a finger pointing the way and becomes transparent so as to allow a better view of the Divine they are talking about.
We are nothing, pretending to be something.

Quite true and this self deception is the cause of great misery. But the question remains if Man has the potential to become himself and therebye make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If this is true how can it be done? is it defined by secular standards or something else. If it is something else, that something else has to be the essence of religion that hasn't become secularized or fantasized. An expression of human potential:

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. -- Erich Fromm

However, this is the problem:

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.) -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

 

[Snoopy]

I think it was . . . actually . . . me.

An easy enough mistake - we do look quite similar.

s.